RESUMO
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the effect of TCM in preventing and treating post-visual pathway injury caused by radiotherapy (RT) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Thirty-five patients of NPC were randomly divided into the RT group (n = 17) and the RT + TCM group (n = 18), they were all received RT, but the latter was treated additionally with Jingming recipe, a Chinese recipe. The latent period and amplitude of evoked potential (EP) were measured before and after ending of RT, using multi-focusing visual evoked potential inspector.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The latent time of EP, both upper and lower visual field, was prolonged significantly after RT in the RT group (P < 0.05), but not in the RT + TCM group (P > 0.05); the amplitude of EP of upper visual field lowered significantly (P < 0.05) in the RT group but insignificantly in the RT + TCM group (P > 0.05); as for the EP amplitude of lower visual field, it was unaltered in RT group after RT (P > 0.05), but increased in the RT + TCM group (P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The Chinese medicine Jingming recipe was effective in preventing and treating RT induced post-visual pathway injury.</p>